Occupy Wall Street Succeeds as an Outsider

Anton Woronczuk, who has taken part in the protests, is a student at Union Theological Seminary.

Updated October 7, 2011, 10:59 AM

Occupy Wall Street is succeeding because it does not naively appeal to formal power. By remaining dedicated to completely democratic ideals, it insulates itself from co-option by any political party. It is strong because it remains unwilling to compromise itself as anything short of a nonviolent, existential threat to the symbol of power it has chosen as its opposition.

Occupy Wall Street is the antithesis of the passive political culture of the left that wasted much of its energy and resources to promote Barack Obama as the solution to the immediate and structural crises that our country faced in 2008. The movement continues to function with a revolving leadership at general assemblies, demonstrating that a social movement can remain viable without formal leadership.

The movement is strong because it remains an existential threat to the current power structure.

While initially composed of mostly middle-class whites, the movement did not remain uncritical of this and sought to organize with communities of color who were most devastated by the financial crisis generated by Wall Street. It also seriously confronted issues of racism and sexism within its own community.

Although Occupy Wall Street has denounced brutality by the New York Police Department, protesters continue to respect and support the police as members of the “99 percent,” demonstrating the movement’s commitment to nonviolence and justice for all members of society.

At this point, Occupy Wall Street has the potential to transform itself into a truly existential threat to the power of corporations in our political system. It must continue to be peaceful and refuse to fight the police. The minute it does, the Tea Party will capitalize on it as evidence that the left is attempting to seize control of America. As regional occupations rise across the nation, they must be careful not to centralize their leadership and enmesh the movement in the kind of futile partisan politics that dominate Congress.

What can Occupy Wall Street do better? That depends on whether the rest of us are ready to join the struggle for a truly just society. Occupy Wall Street is a movement for those without access to corporate power — the 99 percent — to discover their own capacity to democratize this society; and now it is bringing us to a historic moment when we might begin to liberate ourselves from the tyranny of the 1 percent.